You Picked A Fight, But You Got A War
by coffeemuse
Summary: It barely registers-Martha's shrill yell for Kate. She doesn't even have time to turn around and look. She feels the all too familiar burn seer through her stomach before she falls forward onto the pavement. She looks down and see's red blossom up through the white of her dress. She presses her hand to the wound, trying to breathe but finding it too difficult..." 07x01.


sliiiiiiiiiight 07x01 spoilers. takes place immediately after kate see's his car in flames.

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><p>It's engulfing her. She can feel the lick of the heat clawing at her skin, even as she stands in the middle of the street, the ends of her wedding dress bunched in her hands as she stares at the flames. The shock and surreal-ness of it all, burn her feet into the pavement, enabling her to move.<p>

Her breath hitches in her throat and her lungs are burning, feels like she just ran a marathon in below freezing weather. Her eyes are glued to the car. The black paint barely showing as the yellows and oranges take it over completely.

A loud pop from the fire brings her back, knocks the shock away for a moment, and she's off. She's running towards the car, towards the fire . . . towards her fiance, she doesn't care. She has to know if he's in the car.

Her lungs ache, her chest heaves and she can barely see through the tears in her eyes, but she runs as fast as her heels and dress will allow her.

Ryan and Esposito are right behind her calling for her, telling her to stop, that there's nothing she can do, they reach out for her. But she ignores them, moves faster, slides down the slope of the ditch, groaning and crying out "no's" as she lands right next to the flaming car. She stumbles to her feet and backs away from it quickly, the heat too intense. She raises her hand up to shield the flaming heat from her face.

Kate barely registers the presence of Alexis and Martha as they run to the railing on the side of the road, looking down at Kate and the car. She barely hears Martha's "Oh my god," over the sizzling heat.

It's too much. She's heaving, trying to fight for breath. She collapses on the ground, whispers of a cry for her soon-to-be-husband. She's on all fours, leans back onto her haunches then falls back onto her butt as she slowly starts to breathe, slowly let's it all sink in.

And then she feels the heavy pounding of water against her. Confused, she raises her hands, watches the streams of water cascade off her palms, down her wrists. She feels her dress get heavier. She slowly looks up, sees the nothing but the blast of water coming down over her and the car. The fire slowly dies down beside her, and just as fast as she blinks it's gone.

She slowly looks back towards his car, sees the driver side window and with sheer determination, she gets up. Her dress is weighing her down, she struggles to stand, but once she makes it back on her feet, she walks over to the window, her head down, too afraid to actually look and see if he's there or not. She gets closer, stops, lifts her head and looks inside, and with a sigh of relief she turns to yell, "It's empty. He's not here!"

Ryan and Espo are at the top of the ditch looking down, forlorn faces as they hear Kate's voice. "He's not in the car!" She rasps.

It's then that she realizes that this is far more worse than if she were to have found him dead. If he were dead, she'd know where he is, wouldn't have to worry about him being kidnapped, locked away somewhere, dead or alive. But, this. This is uncertain. He's gone. She has no way of knowing anything.

She rubs her hands down her face, flicking the water off her hands as she makes her way up to Ryan and Espo. They offer their hands and she takes them as they pull her up.

"He's not here. He's gone," She panics. She falls back on her heals a little, the shock of everything getting to her. She rests her hands against her hips. Her head dips down as she fights off more tears. "I have to go find him, I have to go look for him . . ."

She pushes past the boys, runs towards a police car eager to get to the station and start looking for him.

She rounds the hood of a police car, opens the passenger side door to get inside, when she hears it.

It barely registers-Martha's shrill yell for Kate. She doesn't even have time to turn around and look. She feels the all too familiar burn seer through her stomach before she falls forward onto the pavement.

She looks down and see's red blossom up through the white of her dress. She presses her hand to the wound, trying to breathe but finding it too difficult.

Her body feels heavy and she can no longer keep her eyes open, the last thing she sees before her eyes close are Ryan and Espo's shoes as they run toward her.

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><p>TBC...?<p> 


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